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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232048">always gold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/pseuds/Origamidragons'>Origamidragons</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Multi, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:42:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,494</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232048</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/pseuds/Origamidragons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Roger is laughing, the sound a little uneven and jagged in his throat from the exertion of sprinting, and so is Rouge, high and clear as bells, and she has a flower behind her ear and he has blood on his forehead, and they’re the <i>worst</i>, both of them, and Rayleigh <i>loves</i> them. </p><p>(The beginning, the middle, and the epilogue of Roger, Rayleigh, and Rouge.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gol D. Roger/Portgas D. Rouge/Silvers Rayleigh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>always gold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gol D. Roger isn’t a complicated man.</p><p>There are those who will disagree, of course, someday, those who will puzzle over the Pirate King’s myth for years and decades to come, piecing together a fractured legacy and wondering at the motivation behind every move. But that’s years and years away, a future still hidden behind the endless horizon.</p><p>For the moment, the Pirate King is only Roger, sitting in the bow of a sturdy little boat with his feet up on the rail and the brim of his hat shielding his eyes from the piercing sun, and he has a problem. He sighs, folds his arms and glares up at the woven brim of golden straw over his eyes, highlighted in a criss-cross pattern by the midday sunshine.</p><p>Normally, his problems don’t stay problems for long. He likes resolving things, usually quickly, usually excitingly, usually through violence. He’s not someone who leaves things waiting if he can ever help it. And he <em>really</em> isn’t someone who gets <em>scared</em> when faced with a challenge. And yet-</p><p>“Oi, Roger!”</p><p>Someone kicks him in the side, startling him out of his thoughtful half-asleep daze and catching him so off guard he squawks and tumbles half off of the bench, landing in an undignified pile on the deck.</p><p>He scowls, shoves his hat out of his eyes to look up at Rayleigh, who’s leveling a perfectly unimpressed stare straight down at him. His blonde hair is mussed from the ocean winds, hanging in messy strands around his face, stiff with salt-spray, his shirt half-unbuttoned like it usually is. Roger blinks a couple times, then remembers to glare. “<em>Hey</em>, I was having a really nice dream.”</p><p>“You were <em>supposed</em> to be keeping an eye on the horizon,” Rayleigh says. “Map says we’re supposed to reach the next one sometime today, remember?”</p><p>“So? I’m the <em>captain</em>, not a <em>lookout</em>,” he complains, pulling himself back up onto the bench with as much dignity as he can muster, which is really not much at all.</p><p>“Then <em>act</em> like it,” Rayleigh says, unmoved.</p><p>“Why can’t Rouge do it? She’s got the compass, anyways.”</p><p>“Captain has to pull his weight too,” another voice chimes in, bright with laughter, and Rayleigh steps aside to let Rouge slip past him and drop down to sit on the bench. She has her hair tied up in a bandana, cheeks a little pink from the sun, throwing her freckles into sharp relief. “Otherwise we might need to mutiny.”</p><p>Roger opens his mouth to object, but gets distracted before he can, by- “Hey, you called me captain! Does that mean you’re joining the crew?”</p><p>“I never said that,” she says, raising an eyebrow with a teasing smile that cuts straight through his chest. “Remember? You guys are just giving me a ride.”</p><p>“We’ve been giving you a ride for three weeks now,” Rayleigh mutters, not sounding nearly as grumpy about it as his words suggest.</p><p>“I never said a ride to <em>where</em>,” she parries back, grinning up at him as she hoists her long legs up onto the bench and leans back against Roger’s side in an overexaggerated languid stretch. Her body is warm, like the sunshine beating down on them made solid. “It’s the journey, not the destination- isn’t that what you pirates say?”</p><p>Rayleigh snorts. “Who do you think you’re kidding? As though you’re not just as much a pirate as we are,” he says, stepping up to the rail, propping a hand on Roger’s shoulder as he leans out to squint at the horizon.</p><p>Rayleigh’s hands are strong, solid and rough from tying ropes and hauling anchors. He was a dockworker for awhile, he’s said, though he’s worked more than a dozen different jobs, apprenticed to twice as many different craftsman. His work-worn hand is heavy on Roger’s shoulder. Roger can feel it burning through his shirt.</p><p>Rouge only grins at the accusation; Rayleigh rolls his eyes before glancing back out over the ocean, but there’s a smile on his lips.</p><p>Rouge is warm against his side and Rayleigh’s hand is heavy on his shoulder, and Roger has a <em>problem</em>.</p><p>“Spyglass,” Rayleigh says, reaching his hand back expectantly without looking around, and Roger’s shoulder feels cold in its absence.</p><p>Rouge obligingly reaches behind Roger to find the spyglass where he’d set it before drifting off, and he leans forward without really thinking so she can grab it and pass it into Rayleigh’s hand. Rayleigh brings it to his eye, propping himself up on Roger’s shoulder again, and leans forward.</p><p>“I see it,” he says after another moment, and Roger lights up immediately, scrambling around to see for himself. Rayleigh hands over the spyglass without needing to be asked, and after a moment of searching, the island comes into view. Just a shadow on the horizon, still, but the winds are guiding them straight ahead and the ocean is calm, at least for now, as it often is in East Blue.</p><p>They’ll be headed for somewhere bigger and better, soon, the two or three of them, depending on if Rouge comes along.</p><p>(If she leaves, gets off on one of the stops along the line like she keeps saying she’s going to, that’s half his problem solved. He doesn’t want her to, even so.)</p><p>He grins, big and delighted, as the shadow of the distant island slowly resolves into a silhouette. There’s a blur of grey and white along the shoreline that must be a collection of buildings. This is what he lives for- new islands, new cities, new <em>people</em>. New challenges to be met, new fights to be fought.</p><p>The world is huge. He’s going to see it all.</p><p>And he knows who he wants with him, when he does.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Roger has a by-now familiar bounce in his step as he wanders down the city streets, eyes bright and watchful in the way Rayleigh knows means he’s looking for trouble. He’s gotten used to it by now, more or less. He’s known since the day they met that Roger isn’t really someone who can be stopped from doing whatever the hell he wants.</p><p>Rayleigh lets himself fall a step behind, partly to better take in the sights at his own pace and mostly so that when Roger inevitably <em>does</em> find trouble he’ll have Rayleigh at his back to haul him out of it, and finds himself side by side with Rouge. She shoots him a grin, that clever one that’s so common on her face, and slips her arm into his, falling comfortably into step.</p><p>“Beautiful city, isn’t it?” she says, tilting her head back to look up at the high, old buildings that rise above them on all sides, bricks ornately carved and engraved, the occasional gargoyle leaning down to glare at them as they pass. Past the rooftops, the sky is blue, nearly cloudless, populated only by the wheeling white shadows of seagulls.</p><p>“It is,” he has to agree, but, “I don’t like it.”</p><p>He doesn’t even need to look over to know she’s raising an eyebrow. “Oh?”</p><p>“Everything’s too close together,” he says, glancing around. A natural consequence of the age of the city, probably; buildings built between other buildings, on top of other buildings, creating walls of architecture on all sides and few easy escape routes between them. “Harder to get away. And there’s lots of marines around, too.”</p><p>“What, you don’t trust us to be on our best behavior?” she asks, faux-offended. He gives her a flat look, and she only manages a few seconds before breaking down giggling.</p><p>He snorts. “You, <em>maybe</em>,” he allows, glancing around for the familiar yellow of Roger’s hat, but before he can find it-</p><p>“Oh, Ray, look, flowers!” she says, tugging him off to one side, pulling both his attention and him towards a cart at the side of the road, overflowing with a riot of colorful petals. Her hand is still in the crook of his arm and her voice and eyes are bright with delight, and so he follows, mostly failing to smother a smile.</p><p>He hadn’t liked her, at first. Not that he’d <em>disliked</em> her, necessarily. Portgas D. Rouge was the sort of person who was deeply difficult to dislike. He just- well. If it had been up to him, he probably wouldn’t have taken her on the ship at all, this long-haired girl who called herself a traveller, who smiled almost as much as their captain did and never made promises.</p><p>But it hadn’t been up to him, and if he’s honest, he’s glad.</p><p>Sometimes, on rare occasions, Roger has good ideas. Rouge had definitely been one of them.</p><p>Rouge sorts through the plucked blossoms on display with gentle hands, careful with the stems and petals, and the flower-seller behind the stall looks at her with clear approval. Rayleigh will be the first to admit he doesn’t know anything at all about flowers, but watching Rouge, the clear fond familiarity in her eyes, he can’t help but think maybe he wouldn’t mind learning.</p><p>She tucks a flower stem behind her ear, a short one with a big white starburst of petals, and whirls to look at him. “What do you think?”</p><p>“Ah,” he says, caught slightly off guard. The flower stands out like a star against her strawberry-blonde hair, against her skin still pink from the sun. “You look- good?”</p><p>She smiles, and she’s always smiling, but it feels like a victory anyways. “Thanks! I’m not sure if white’s my color, though,” she adds thoughtfully, pulling the flower out of her hair again and twirling it thoughtfully between her fingers.</p><p>Rayleigh hesitates, just for a moment, then: “Red.”</p><p>He takes the flower from her hand, as gently as he can, and replaces it with another of the same type from the cart, trading snowy white petals for rich ruby red. He holds it out, feeling a little awkward. “Red’s more your color.”</p><p>Rouge’s smile is sun-bright and radiant, and she when tucks the flower behind her ear, it suits her perfectly.</p><p>“You two are adorable,” the flower-seller says, her weathered face creasing in a smile that wrinkles her whole face.</p><p>Rayleigh blinks. “Oh, that’s…” he starts, then glances over at Rouge, but she just smiles at him like they’ve got a secret, the two of them, so he shrugs and drops it.</p><p>She’s still searching her wallet for coins to pay the shopkeeper with when there’s a crash and a shout from up the street. Rayleigh looks up, already feeling resigned and <em>disgustingly</em> fond, and isn’t surprised even the tiniest bit when he sees Roger, laughing like an idiot and dodging around passers-by with a pair of marines on his tail, headed straight for them. There’s blood on his knuckles and running down his forehead, the same exact hue as the flower in Rouge’s hair.</p><p>Rouge tosses a pair of coins to the shopkeep just as Roger reaches them, just as he grabs Rayleigh’s wrist in one hand and Rouge’s in the other, and then they’re running.</p><p>The wind catches the brim of Roger’s hat and yanks it off his head, and Rayleigh reaches back almost on autopilot to grab it out of midair with his free hand and shove it back down on his captain’s stupid skull without losing a step. Roger is laughing, the sound a little uneven and jagged in his throat from the exertion of sprinting, and so is Rouge, high and clear as bells, and she has a flower behind her ear and he has blood on his forehead, and they’re the <em>worst</em>, both of them, and Rayleigh <em>loves</em> them.</p><p>“What did you <em>do?</em>” he demands, more exasperated than angry, and Roger just laughs harder.</p><p>There’s something about them, about Rouge and Roger both, something magnetic and impossible that makes it difficult to do anything but follow them. Or at least that’s how Rayleigh feels, sometimes, caught up in the orbit of two spiralling stars. Sometimes it almost feels like it’s all he can do not to get left behind.</p><p>He thinks he wouldn’t have them any other way.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The sun is just beginning to set over the ocean by the time they manage to lose their pursuers and make their hasty exit from the island, the three of them in their little boat with what supplies Rayleigh had had the foresight to buy before the inevitable trouble hit. Rouge is still laughing, her chest warm from fading excitement, when they cast off.</p><p>She reaches up to check the red lily is still tucked behind her ear, and feels something soften in her ribcage when her fingers ghost across the petals.</p><p>She hadn’t meant to stay. Really, she hadn’t. She’d only meant to hitch a ride for an island or two, with the two boys who at once seemed like the least pirate-ish pirates she’d ever met and like they could never have been anything else. But a few days became a week became two, and she’d kept meaning to find another boat and never quite got around to it, and- well.</p><p>She’d never planned on being a pirate, exactly, and she’s still not sure whether she is or not. But does it even matter, really, when for once she’s so <em>happy</em> exactly where she is?</p><p>Their little boat is, well, little. It’s only barely big enough for three people to live on full-time. They’re always in each others’ space, always <em>sharing </em>space. It’s almost funny, how comfortable it is, how easy. She’s barely known them for three weeks, but she already feels safer with this pair of pirates than she ever did with anyone she knew back on her home island.</p><p>They have something in common with her, she thinks, something she’d never been able to share with anyone else back home; that tug in her soul, quiet but insistent, pulling her ever onwards towards the horizon. Is that what it is, to be a pirate?</p><p>If it is, maybe Rouge is one after all. If it is, she can’t say that she minds.</p><p>She flips the vegetables she’s frying in the pan, glances over her shoulder at her crewmates. They’re sitting side-by-side at the galley’s small table, Rayleigh surveying the only map they’ve got with a thoughtful frown, Roger leaning so close into his personal space he’s nearly on his lap. Rayleigh barely even seems to notice, only shifting his arm a little so Roger can see what he’s looking at. She can’t help but smile.</p><p>She loves them so much.</p><p>They’ll figure it out eventually. And if they don’t, well, she’s got no qualms about just kissing the both of them and letting things sort themselves out from there. Pirates are <em>supposed</em> to be greedy, aren’t they? They’re supposed to take what they want, no matter what gets in their way.</p><p>If Rouge <em>is</em> a pirate, she must be a lucky one.</p><p>She’s already got all the gold and silver she could want.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>so!! i had a ton of fun with this. this is part one (mutual pining) of what's going to be a three part fic for three of my tropes from the <a href="https://op-pirate-fleet.tumblr.com/post/632779037274750976/one-piece-bingo-sign-ups-are-open">one piece trope bingo</a> event. (signups still open if people want to participate!) in practice it wound up being mostly an excuse for ot3 brainrot, but oh well. </p><p>the story title is from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqc2uOunPdA">always gold</a> by radical face, while the chapter title is from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcQ2XmNvjk4">i knew prufrock before he got famous</a> by frank turner. recommend both songs for some very good r/r/r vibes.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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